Photography by Henk Fliek

Past to future…

I remember my father’s Minolta X-500 when I was in my teens. I marveled at this secretive, highly complex device that was able to bring technology and creativity together. I marveled at the possibility to create images that were dependent on your ability to actually create them. I marveled at these lenses, one even larger than the other that would allow you to capture the most stunning wildlife scenes as I saw in various Minolta magazines. I remember this Japanese photographer who won a first prize with a magical photo of a beautiful heron…

And I thought, would I ever be able to create these images?

Then came autofocus. I bought a Minolta Dynax 500si autofocus at the airport, just before departing on a safari trip to South Africa. On my first trip to Africa I was very lucky to see the Big Five, including a couple of cheetahs and a male lion beautifully posing right across the road. And I also learned that it’s wise to carry your camera with you at all times, so you don’t miss the shot of the day when a couple of massive rhinos are crossing the road just in front of your car…

But I really did not have too much knowledge of – nor skills in photography.

About 5 years ago that slowly started to change when I bought my first DSLR: a Nikon D300s. Looking back, I still really didn’t know what I was doing, and I bought that model for all the wrong reasons. However, I was triggered to improve my images every time after a shoot, and the noticeable improvement did drive me to continue shooting and wanting to learn more.

The change from a Nikon D300s to a Nikon D3s was a big one. There’s something very different when you switch from DX/crop to FX/full frame. Everything just looked better, and I felt I was able to capture images with a higher level of quality, triggering me even more to improve my photography skills as I knew that most, if not all technological constraints were now gone.

So where am I now?

Well, after about 5 years of shooting different scenes and locations in Asia, Africa, and North America, I’ve got a couple of (tens of thousand) images, and I think it’s time to “go back, come back, and go forward”: I will select portfolios of unique “Life” (travel) and “Nature” (landscape & wildlife) images and share them for critique, not only on this blog but on other well-known photography sites as well, and hope to continue improving my photography to a level only the future can tell…

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4 Comments on “Past to future…”

New to your blog, your work is special. I will have too delete all my images and start anew. Thanks for the inspiration, look forward further. Postings on your blog.. I enjoyed your reviews and thoughts on the 850, waiting for mine to arrive.
Joe Parisi
Marco Island Fl.
Oct 3 2018

Congratulations Henk on being featured for your photography and I love the story you share above. Your photography is beautiful and you are quite accomplished. Reminds me of the work of Thomas Mangelson, an accomplished photographer in his own right, from my home state of Wyoming.